Tennessee statistics

Tennessee has the dubious distinction of having the worst violent crime rate in the country. The state was among the top 10 in the country for murders and robberies and was first for aggravated assaults, with an estimated 479.6 for every 100,000 residents. Tennessee’s 41,550 violent crimes in 2012 were up 6.8 percent from 2011 but down 10 percent from 2007, when there were 46,380 violent crimes. There were 388 murders in the state in 2012, up for a second straight year. To be fair, Tennessee’s violent streak is concentrated in some of the major metropolitan areas. Memphis’ violent crime rate was the nation’s fifth worst, while Nashville’s was the 18th worst. Like many states with high violent crime, poverty in Tennessee is acute, and high school and college graduation rates are lower than most of the country.

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You might think that going to California, Texas or New York exposes you to a lot of crime. But in fact it was Tennessee that had the nation’s highest violent crime rate last year.

The FBI’s latest statewide statistics offer a snapshot of the underside of the 50 states: where violent crime is most likely to occur. According to the FBI, violent crime includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the states with the highest rates of violent crime in the country.

While violent crime rose just under 1 percent nationally in 2012, the trend for the past 20 years has been steady decline. Crime peaked in the late 1980s, fueled by the crack cocaine epidemic. Beginning in the early 1990s, crime began to decline. Although the exact cause remains unclear, experts have pointed to factors such as better policing, demographic changes, higher incarceration rates, a drop in cocaine use and the introduction of a variety of social programs.

People in Tennessee were more likely to be victims of violent crime than residents of any other state in the nation, according to FBI statistics.

The FBI’s yearly crime statistics report indicated that about 644 out of every 100,000 people reported to police that they had been the victim of a violent crime in Tennessee. In the next highest states, Nevada and Alaska, 608 and 603 residents out of every 100,000 reported violent crimes to police, respectively. Only Washington, D.C., had a higher violent crime rate, according to the report, with 1,244 out of every 100,000 people reporting violent crimes.

Haslam office warns against comparisons

Gov. Bill Haslam’s office cautioned against making comparisons among states or jurisdictions using crime data, mirroring FBI warnings. The FBI annually warns against making such comparisons because they don’t take into account multiple variables like demographics, economics, employment and education.

“The governor and his administration are taking a multi-agency, comprehensive approach to public safety. After working to identify specific challenges in 2011 along with different approaches to tackle them, the Public Safety Subcabinet unveiled its strategic plan in 2012,” said Dave Smith, spokesman for Haslam. “Over the past several years, we’ve proposed legislation that has been approved by the General Assembly and signed into law addressing key issues in the strategic plan. This is an ongoing, coordinated effort to address public safety issues in Tennessee.”

The state also provided a separate set of statistics, gathered by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, that showed crime rate drops from 2010 through 2012. The state’s statistics differ from the FBI’s because TBI tracks a larger number of crimes, including misdemeanors. The state also measures each crime as a separate incident, whereas the FBI would treat multiple crimes committed at once as a single event, listing it under the most serious crime committed.

Dalya Qualls, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security, said that overall crime in Tennessee through August 2013 is down more than 11 percent when compared with the previous year. She said violent crime was down nearly 13 percent and property crime down more than 10 percent.

Decline not uniform

In an interview with 24/7 Wall St., Urban Institute senior fellow John Roman said the crime decline has not been uniform. It has improved markedly in some large cities, such as New York, Dallas and Washington, D.C. However, the decline has been less impressive in cities like Baltimore and Detroit, where economic and racial segregation limit the ability of the poor to move into the middle class.

The more the population is integrated, Roman said, the greater the chances of sizable crime declines. Most crime is committed by people at the bottom of the economic totem pole, he said.

The apparent relationship between low income, low education and higher crime rates has been well documented, although identifying the cause and effect is still a matter of debate. It is clear, though, that these states for the most part match the national trend. Of the 10 states with the highest rates of violent crime, eight have lower rates of adults with bachelor’s degrees, and most of them had median income levels below the national figure in 2012.

There are notable exceptions to the national trend, however. Alaska, Delaware and Maryland all have higher educational attainment and higher income, but they still make the list. In Maryland and Delaware, this likely has to do with pockets of very high crime in the largest urban areas.

While Maryland has the ninth-highest violent crime rate in the country, it also has the third-lowest poverty rate, the highest median income and one of the highest proportions of adults with a college degree. The reason for this discrepancy is likely the concentration of high crime in Baltimore. The Baltimore metropolitan area also had the ninth highest violent crime rate in the country last year and accounted for nearly a third of all the incidents in the state that year.

On its website, the FBI instructs readers to avoid comparing state violence because rankings tend to be simplistic and ignore factors that influence crime, as well as the different ways crimes are measured and reported. For this reason, Roman cautioned against directly comparing states based on their individual crime rates. However, because the states with the highest and lowest violent crime rates have remained consistent for many years, he believes comparing state ranks was useful. “This exercise is worth doing. I don’t know how you make policy without doing this kind of thing.”